Undaunted

33

Kris came awake in a mental fog.

Where was she?

What had just happened?

The answers to all those questions didn’t seem to matter all that much to her.

Pain pulsated all around her, danced like the flames of a wood fire lighting up the night sky at the beach. She felt the mesmerizing urge to stare at it, but it was distant, out of reach, unable to affect her.

Slowly, it dawned on Kris that she’d been like this before.

Nelly, AM I Drunk? DID I fall off The WAGON?

Nelly didn’t answer.

Jack? Jack? Are you there? You’re always there. You love me.

With an effort, Kris heaved her eyelids open.

The room was white on white on white with white and black instruments and tubes and . . .

She was in a hospital. No, you didn’t get tubed up like this in just any hospital.

She was in an intensive-care room.

She tried to scream, but there was something stuck down her throat. She struggled to reach for it, but her arms didn’t move.

Suddenly, there were people in the room, rushing to her bedside, checking the instruments.

And quickly she slipped back down into blessed, numb unconsciousness.

When everyone ran for Kris’s room, Jack followed them, hanging back and keeping his mouth shut.

That wasn’t easy once he got a good look at her.

Still, years of hard discipline kept his mouth shut and his back against the wall as doctors and nurses went hurriedly about their business, correcting whatever it was that had allowed Kris to surface when they wanted to keep her asleep.

When things had returned to the silence of a well-equipped tomb, Dr. Diem came over to join Jack watching the machine breathe for her.

“Now you know why we said you did not need to see her.”

“She isn’t a pretty sight,” Jack agreed.

“And there is nothing either you or I can do but let her sleep.”

“Can I ask what just happened?”

“We cut too fine a line and crossed it the wrong way. Did she ever have a drug addiction problem?”

“She spent a year or two drinking after her little brother died. I understand that she was also heavily drugged to help her be a ‘good little girl.’ ”

“Was she a good little girl?”

“Never while I’ve known her, but then, I’ve never seen her take a drink. Last time she was hurt, she refused most of her pain meds. She preferred to take our heads off instead. Conscious, she’s not a well-behaved patient.”

The doctor shook his head. “There’s nothing about that in her permanent medical record, but that is not unusual with people of a certain social level. If it is not on the paper trail, it never happened. Makes it hard for an honest workingman to do what I need to do when there are real problems.”

“A problem I run into regularly,” Jack admitted.

“I’ve adjusted her drug regime. If you ask me, she does not show any of the built-up requirement I’d expect to find in a former abuser. She’s behaving very much like a normal person who’s just been overdosed too many times.”

“Maybe I’ll tell her that the next time I think she really needs to get drunk.”

“I’ll leave that to you, soldier.”

“Ah, Doc, this wake-up. Does it say anything about her? Is she okay?”

“All it says is that I failed to properly program her drug dispenser and let her surface to a consciousness that I didn’t want her to experience. You saw the mess we had in here. I don’t know what her brain was doing. I had no time for any tests. Sorry, trooper, but you’ll just have to keep sweating out her situation the same as I am.”

With a final glance at Kris, a glance that told him she was back deep in a . . . hopefully . . . healing coma, Jack turned his back on her.

Penny joined Jack at the hospital. She’d left her techs to search the explosive rubble to their hearts’ content. If anyone disturbed them or tried to stop their hearts from being content, she’d be back there in ten minutes.

The Marine was just coming out from Kris’s room. He told her all he knew about Kris’s condition in simple, monosyllabic words.

“So we don’t really know anything,” she summed up.

“No. What about those bombs? What can you tell me about them?”

“Less than you just told me about Kris.”

“That’s not good,” Jack said, taking a seat in the waiting room.

Penny sat next to him. “Local cops think this is some kind of cowboy vendetta.”

“Could it be?”

“I checked the list of planes that landed in Denver during the last twenty-four hours. None of them were from Duke Austin’s territory. In fact, none of them were from cowboy country. This place doesn’t have scheduled flights from anywhere other than the two industrial cities, and not many from them.”

“That was what Kris had just found out. She was arranging with the young man whose life she saved to set up a bank and shake up the local way of doing things.”

“Could that be reason enough for the bombing?” Penny asked.

“Doesn’t seem like there would be time enough to arrange it. Besides, the fellow Kris was working with is the son of Louis DuVale, the big man hereabouts. Would anyone want to put that man’s kid at risk, or not expect Kris to do her level best to save him?”

Penny chuckled. “You and I would expect her to do that. Can’t see anyone local knowing our girl well enough to count on her for anything.”

Penny stood and began pacing. “Jack, there’s something fishy about all this.”

“It doesn’t feel right to me, either.”

“The bomb was straight-off-the-shelf stuff. Off the shelf with no way of tracking it, I must add.”

“No tracers!” Jack said, incredulous.

“Nobody tosses bombs around here, don’t you know? So they been saving money by not putting in tracers.”

“There ought to be a law,” Jack growled. “Oh, I forgot, there was one under the Society of Humanity. How fast we forget.”

“Apparently these folks forgot that law before we tossed the Society,” Penny said. “But Jack, someone was real smart about these bombs. If they’d left them in a trash can or a stray briefcase, Nelly would have sniffed them.”

Penny stopped her pacing. “Hold it, Mimzy, where is Nelly?”

“Nelly is not online.”

“Sal, can you raise Nelly?” Jack asked.

“I have tried, sir. Nelly is not responding.”

“Where is Nelly?” Penny said, and turned to the nursing station. “Do you have Kris Longknife’s personal effects?”

“Let me check. Her clothes are rather a mess, and we had the devil’s own time cutting her out of that body stocking she was wearing.”

“It’s spider-silk armor. It may explain why she’s alive,” Jack said.

The nurse raised an eyebrow but said no more as she rushed from her station to the doors into the inner sanctum.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a small lump in the palm of her hand. “Is this what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Penny said, taking Nelly from her. For someone who did so much and exuded so much personality, the physical reality of Nelly was tiny.

“Nelly,” Penny whispered.

No response.

“Is she turned off?” Jack asked.

“No,” Mimzy said. “Sal and I are both tracking a low hum. She is active, just not doing anything.”

“Explain yourself,” Jack said.

Sal took up the story. “Sir, Mother Nelly is active, at least at some state. However, she is not on net. She is not saying anything to anyone.”

“Is she damaged? Is something broken?” Penny asked.

“No, ma’am. Now that we have her in line of sight, we can verify that all critical areas of Mother Nelly are active and working. She can hear us. She can respond. She just chooses not to. Sir, I am worried about Mother Nelly.”

“We all are,” Jack said.

“I’ve never heard of a catatonic computer,” Penny said. “But then, I’ve never heard of any computer like Nelly.”

“None of us have,” Mimzy added.

“What are we going to do?” Sal asked.

“We’re going to hope and pray that Kris pulls through and that she can bring Nelly back from wherever she’s gone,” Jack said.

“Ma’am, the media is talking about us,” Mimzy said. “Would you like me to turn the monitor on?”

Penny really didn’t want to know anything about this place that was the source of so much grief, but it was better to know than not to know, and what she wanted to talk to Jack about could wait.

“Turn it on, Mimzy.”

The computer did.

“She saved my life,” a battered and bandaged Bobby DuVale mumbled from a hospital bed. “She saved my life.”

“The she is Princess Kris Longknife of Wardhaven,” the voiceover told Penny. “And Bobby DuVale of the DuVale family is very lucky she did. A bomb exploded in the foyer of the DuVale Building around lunchtime today, knocking Bobby and the princess to the ground, and if the princess had not landed on top of Bobby, his father, Mr. Louis DuVale, would likely be mourning his son rather than sitting by his bedside.” At this, the camera panned out to show the elder DuVale seated there.

“News 24 tried to get an interview with Princess Longknife.”

Now the camera showed glowering Marines, including Jack. Taken through the glass of a hospital door, the shot did them little justice.

“However, the princess’s security team, having blown it once today, was hard on the job protecting her from cameras and microphones.”

Jack considered his mistake in letting the newsies live and decided he would not make that mistake twice.

The monitor switched to show two young women in a newsroom. Behind them a banner proclaimed: news 24. news for The YOUNG.

“Do we know anything about the bombing?” the woman on the right asked the other.

“The Denver Police Bureau has analyzed the residue, Kate. It was made from materials readily available at any Mining Supply Depot, assuming you have a license for explosives. The folks at the Denver Mining Depot were quick to point out that none of their material had been misused in thirty-seven years and suspect that this has something to do with Princess Longknife. She does have a past history full of strange and dangerous happenings.”

“So I’ve heard,” Kate agreed. “Do the police have a motive, other than political assassination by someone from off planet, Nancy?”

“Yes, Kate. It seems Princess Longknife attended a hoedown last night out on the flats, and ran into a flatlander family that has a history with the Longknifes. Their great-grandpappy was hanged by her great-grandpappy, King Raymond of United Sentients.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well, Kate, the record is rather vague on the specific instance, but we do know that during the Iteeche War capital punishment was only applied in the cases of murder, rape, or cowardice in the face of the enemy.”

“And, Nancy, we all know that no cowboy would ever be guilty of those.”

“That, at least is what the family claims, which means the young princess walked right into a family blood feud. That is what the Denver Police are saying.”

“Do you have a different idea, Nancy?”

“Well, it’s easy to find who has been buying explosives, Kate. A check shows that no cowboy has bought any for the last month. In fact, Kate, no one from the flatlands has an explosive license to buy what blew up at DuVale Plaza today.”

“Didn’t the police check that out, Kate?”

“Nope. My check was the only one run in the last week, Nancy.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Jack growled, not taking his eyes from the screen.

“I did,” said Sal. “It was a negative report, so I didn’t bother you with it.”

“Bother me next time,” Jack muttered.

“Well, that sure doesn’t reflect well on the Denver Police. Do you have any leads you’d like to share with us, Kate?”

The camera zoomed in on Kate.

“As many of our viewers know, Bobby DuVale is a strong advocate for expansion. He and his gal from the flats make no bones about their hopes of moving out to Ft. Louis and starting a whole new dukedom. We here at News 24 have exclusive information that he’d just talked the princess into chartering the First Bank of Ft. Louis and backing it with a half billion Wardhaven dollars. If Bobby weren’t in the hospital, he’d be on News 24 announcing that Ft. Louis and its bank were open for business. Even as the bomb went off, they were talking with Mary Hogg, the new president of the First Bank of Ft. Louis, about recruiting immigrants and financing their start-ups. If viewers of News 24 are interested in finally getting out on their own, they can contact Mary at the number on the screen.”

A number appeared.

“So, Kate, do you think this had anything to do with the two of them being bombed?”

“Nancy, at this time, there’s no way to tell. However, if any old mossback thought they’d curry favor with Mr. Louis DuVale by harming his son, I’d suggest they head for the hills real fast.”

The camera now switched to the other woman. “We’ve gone a bit over on the news tonight, but, hey, youngsters, what about that news. Now, we begin our countdown of this week’s top ten with My Momma Didn’t Raise No Goat Herders’ latest smash hit. . . .”

The monitor went blank, none too soon for Penny’s sanity. What kind of music would come out of a band with that name?

Jack was scratching his chin. “Will surprises never cease. A pair of newsies that actually use their heads.”

“Don’t worry, they’re still young. They’ll get educated,” Penny assured him.

“So, someone had the bomb makings well before we got here.”

“And that someone was plenty smart. They kept the bomb well back where Nelly couldn’t sniff it, then dropped it on Kris.”

“It was a team effort. Two bomb throwers upstairs and at least one lookout in the lobby.”

“Hard to say, but definitely the bad guys had to know all about a meeting set up only this morning.”

“But they didn’t know about Kris’s exit. Hell, even I didn’t know,” Jack muttered ruefully.

“She does like to do her own thing. Maybe now she’ll listen to us.”

Left unmentioned was the assumption that she would live through this latest and have enough brain left to apply any lessons learned.

“This planet is dangerous. A whole lot more dangerous than any of us were led to believe when we were sent here. And someone’s been planning this danger for a long, long time,” Jack said.

“I think we better recalibrate all our assumptions,” Penny agreed.

“So, is this a homegrown problem, or did at least some of it get imported? They never had bombs thrown before. What you want to bet me they hired that skill?” Jack spoke the words as he thought them. “Sal, when did the last ship come by here?”

“About three months ago,” he said. “It had only sixteen passengers who disembarked.”

So Sal was learning to get ahead of Jack, Penny thought. Good for him.

“Let’s look at them,” Penny said, and pictures of sixteen people appeared on the blank wall in front of them. Five were a family, husband, wife, three kids, vouched for by a relative. Six more were young couples from Earth looking for a new beginning according to their application. One pair were doctors, the other pair college-trained in animal husbandry. They’d been staked by one duke or another.

The last man was alone. Officially, he was a businessman, bound for Denver. No one vouched for him, but he’d posted the required bond, one million Earth dollars, say, ten thousand Wardhaven.

He’d given an address for contact.

“He’s not at the address,” Sal said.

“The name on the passport has not been used for any purpose except for the first five days after he landed,” Mimzy added. “After that, he vanished.”

“I’m trying to match the photo with the universal database,” Sal said. “The photo is of poor quality. If I didn’t know that you couldn’t provide retouched photos for passports, I’d say he did just that.”

“Lesson one for you, Sal. Never trust a human farther than you can throw them,” Jack said.

“I can’t throw a human. I’ve no arms.”

“So you see the reason for lesson one,” Jack said.

“Humans,” Mimzy muttered.

“Can’t live with them,” Sal said, “and wouldn’t want to live without ’em.”

“Let me know if you change your mind on that,” Jack said.

“I think I’m getting a match on this guy,” Mimzy said. “He changed a lot about his face, but I don’t think he was planning on having to defeat a search by one of Nelly’s kids.” There was more than a hint of pride there.

“Talk to me,” Penny said.

“How does Willy Stone grab you?” Mimzy said, bringing up a new file. The list of arrests and convictions went all the way down the wall.

Jack whistled. “And all of that before he turned thirty. What’s he been doing since?”

“He’s either walking the straight and narrow,” Penny said, “or gotten a whole lot better at not getting caught.”

“My money’s on the last,” Mimzy said.

Penny went down Willy Stone’s rap sheet. Kid stuff to start with, then more and more heavy-duty crime: murder, robbery, more murder. Notes on the side identified even more murders and several bombings that he was tied to, but not arrested for.

The last item brought a grin to Penny’s face. “Hey, folks, Willy was on New Eden when Kris put a stop to that revolution. Looks like Willy was hired to help with that uprising but cut and ran early so he made good on his getaway.”

Jack shook his head. “So is he here for pleasure or professional reasons?”

“Can’t he be here for both?” Penny asked.

“Sal, go through the ID he used when he got here. Look for any connections to anyone here on Texarkana. Any phone calls he made. Anything.”

“Sir, I’ve been doing just that since we first noticed his disappearing act. He is clean. Nothing.”

“Don’t you hate it when the bad guys are this good?” Penny muttered. “Abby, are you available?”

“Colonel Cortez and I are tied in via your computers and ours. I hope you don’t mind us looking over your shoulder.”

“Not at all, but don’t you have anything better to do?” Jack asked.

“Things are rather quiet out here,” said the colonel. “Captain Drago has refused to leave his ship, but we’ve got enough people down here to manage the housekeeping. The boffins are rapidly drinking up the limited stock of consumables that were left here, but I’m told a caravan of twenty trucks, full of fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, brews, and spirits, is headed our way. Due here tomorrow morning sometime.”

Jack eyed Penny. “I got a bad feeling about any contact you have with the outside. That convoy. Why are your supplies coming in a convoy?”

“The honcho for Ranch Austin says that no one travels the roads alone out to here this time of year. If a truck broke down, the folks could starve before anyone noticed they hadn’t shown up.”

“You believe him?” Penny asked.

“I did when I was talking to him. After listening to what you’ve been kicking around, I’m not so sure.”

“What are my Marines doing?”

“Ah, Captain,” the colonel said, “helping the boffins drink us dry, I think.”

“Colonel, would you get ahold of my two platoon leaders and brief them on developments. Tell Gunny the bar is closed as of now.”

“Wait one,” the colonel said. He was back on in much less than a minute. “Your lieutenants are headed this way. ETA two minutes.”

“Colonel, could you patch through to us a picture of your general situation at the lodge. Do you have any overhead pictures?”

“I’ll call up the Wasp. They’ve been doing a full sensor scan every time they pass over us. So far we’ve spotted three bears and one truly beautiful couple skinny-dipping in a lake a few miles from here.”

“Colonel, I wouldn’t take anything on this damn planet on face value.”

“I’ve come to that conclusion, too, Captain. We’ll check out the bears and bare-assed a lot more carefully and get back to you.”

“What about that convoy? You got any pictures of it?”

“Sending them along with the others.”

The wall across from Penny lit up as Mimzy beamed a map of the ski lodge onto it. A huge lodge made from rough-hewn logs filled the center of the area. It faced an expansive and empty parking lot. The runway showed the heat from shuttle landings but was empty now. Behind the lodge was a large swimming pool and other smaller cabins spreading out into the trees. A ski lift for taking people up the mountain was not working at the moment.

“Show me the trucks,” Jack ordered.

The map zoomed out then back in to show thirteen trucks. “I thought you said there were twenty,” Jack said.

“That’s what I was told,” the colonel said.

“Any idea why seven trucks would suddenly decide not to do business with us?” Jack asked.

“Maybe some Texarkana merchants decided our money was no good,” Penny said, but put no conviction in her words.

“I have traced the road back out of the hills and there are no more trucks, either pulled over along the side of the road or trying to catch up,” Sal said.

“Jack, this just gets fishier and fishier,” Penny said.

“This doesn’t smell right,” the colonel agreed.

“Mimzy, could we see the lodge again,” Jack said, then slowly studied the map with a commander’s eye. The cabins were in the woods; hostiles could approach them easily from cover.

“Colonel, where are the Iteeche?”

“They’ve taken over a largish cabin quite a distance from the main lodge and are keeping to themselves. Except to get more data. I’m afraid I’ve had to handle approving reading material for them. Nelly has not answered their requests.”

“Nelly’s off-line at the moment,” Jack said.

That hung there for a long moment.

“Colonel, the small bungalows in the trees are just inviting someone to overrun them. They’ll have to be evacuated.”

“Do we tell the Iteeche that we can’t safeguard them where they chose to stay?”

“I don’t think Kris would want to tell them that,” Penny said.

“And if we tell them that, they gonna have to wonder why Kris ain’t doing the honors,” Abby pointed out.

Jack went back to studying the photo of the ski lodge’s grounds. People were already swimming in the pool. Shooters in the woods would mow them down.

“Kris never did like a last-chance defense,” Jack said. “What if we put a roadblock out to stop the convoy well before they get to the lodge. Search the trucks. If they’re clean, we do business. If they aren’t, well, then we do the business.”

“I wouldn’t recommend a small roadblock,” the colonel said, then added, “Your two platoon leaders are here.”

“First Lieutenant Troy, you’re the senior Marine present. It looks like we have a problem headed your way.”

“Yes, sir. Are you coming back?”

“I doubt there’s any chance of me getting there in time, and someone has to keep an eye on the princess.”

“Yes, sir.

“Colonel, I don’t want a confused chain of command, so I’m going to take the bull by the horns. Are you comfortable taking over as senior officer present?”

“These fine Marines shot the stuffings out of my last command.”

“Indeed they did.”

“It would be an honor to lead them in the coming fight, Captain.”

“Lieutenants, you have any problems?”

“No, sir,” came back to him as a duet.

“Then let’s figure out what we’ve got headed our way and how to make sure it doesn’t cause us any trouble.”

Willy Stone was not a happy camper. Seeing Kris Longknife laid out in her own blood should have made his day.

It hadn’t.

Dying, or unconscious in hospital, the woman had still cost him a third of his gunmen. What was it about Longknifes?

Part of it was the nature of this flaky planet. Guns were everywhere, but nobody used them. Not really. Everyone had a story or had heard a story of a duel that had put someone in the grave. But no one had actually seen it done. Or done it.

When word reached the convoy full of brave thugs and proud gunslingers that little Miss Longknife and that local boy, What’s-his-name, were down and bleeding . . . a batch of them went all mushy on Willy.

Some might have had a good reason. It turns out that a big chunk of the gunslingers Anderson, Willy’s client on planet, had gotten his hands on were really guys who just wanted their own spread and didn’t see it happening under the present dukes.

Others were city slickers who would puke if they were dragged off to another cultural event. Not a bad bunch, by Willy’s standards.

But now that What’s-his-name was ready to open up a whole lot of new territory, and that Longknife girl was using a wad of her money to stake the kids with the wanderlust, a good third of Anderson’s “bad boys” were ready to call it quits and run home to Momma . . . or their girlfriends. Whatever.

If Willy had had his way, he would have shot them down where they stood. Still, there were over a hundred of them, and not a one of them willing to give up his guns without a fight.

So Willy left more gunslingers behind with orders to keep the strays squatting on their spurs until the rest of them shot up the lodge. Then they could all go home.

If Willy didn’t slit their throats first.

“You worry too much,” Anderson said, from where he sat next to Willy in the cab of the lead truck. At least the struggling air conditioner made the place half-decent even if it did stink of dust and mold. “We’ve got this whole situation under control. In the morning, we hit the lodge while everyone’s all hungover, leave a lot of dead Wardhaven types behind along with a few cowboys. Enough of our own people are cowboys, and if we need more, we’ve got the dozen hitchhikers we picked up and hog-tied.” The guy laughed at that.

“After that, the shit hits the fan. Wardhaven gets mad at the dukes and their dudes, comes out here, knocks heads, and everything changes. And when change happens, there are all kind of chances for people willing to change fast, right?”

“That’s what I’m told,” Willy agreed. Usually, however, the people getting the most out of a sudden change were a lot smarter than this joker.

Still, fifteen years of preparation hadn’t done vonSchrader all that much good when the shit hit the fan on New Eden. Willy had been smart, as was his policy. He’d gotten his money off planet before the fireworks started. He’d also gotten a job with an escape hatch. When the whole thing fell apart, he’d already been halfway up New Eden’s beanstalk. Funny how good plans go belly-up.

It wasn’t funny that the Longknife girl had been there, on New Eden, helping all those plans fall apart.

She wouldn’t do that to Willy. Not after what he’d done to her first.

“Tell me, Andy,” Willy said, raising the one part of the plan he wasn’t happy with. “What if the dukes decide this little mess we’re leaving at the lodge was done by the city slickers? What if they go sniffing around Denver with their guns blazing before the Longknifes show up to take them down?”

“It’s still no skin off my nose,” Anderson said with a confident laugh. “I ain’t going back to Denver until Wardhaven troops come marching down State Street. Those damn cowboys can shoot off their six-shooters all they want, it will only be opening up more opportunities for me and my friends. We know to duck. DuVale and his buddies don’t. You already picked off his son when you nailed the Longknife girl. Good going!”

“I wish I’d gotten a few Marines along with her.”

“So do I. Why’d you miss them?”

“They weren’t with her. She never moves without them at her elbow, but there she was, prancing out of the damn elevator with just the DuVale boy. I had to take the shot when I had it.”

“Wish you’d gotten the Marines,” Anderson repeated.

“I didn’t, and maybe we ought to do some thinking about what it means that I didn’t.”

“That Marine captain is still mooning around the girl’s hospital bed. He can’t do much from there.”

“Ever heard of the net?” Willy said, keeping most of the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Of course I have. But he’s there, and you’re here. Everything’s fine.”

“Hey, kid,” Willy said to the driver, “pull over the next time you see a wide place in the road. It’s getting dark, and we don’t want to hit them before first light. And I got some rearranging to do.”

“Why would we need to rearrange anything?” Anderson said.

The kid driving the truck nodded and started to slow down.

That was the good part about this job. Most of the people Anderson had hired were smarter than he was. And a lot less optimistic.

Willy leaned back against the seat and called up his memory of the road into the lodge. If he was defending that place from someone like him, what would he do?

Maybe Anderson would be proven right. Maybe the Marines had come down to the lodge to party and would still be partying when the trucks arrived.

They’d all be dead in five minutes.

And if they weren’t partying when Willy and his new best friends drove up, well, they’d still be dead.

Just a few minutes later.