Undaunted

38

A week later, the wedding went off smoothly. Bobby was on his feet and, except for a bit of swaying, was none the worse for the wear.

Kris came down the aisle ahead of Julie in her very own powered wheelchair. The dress was not all that horrid, and, being seated, the full effect was lost.

After the reception in the foyer of the DuVale Building, which showed no residual effects from the bombing, Kris flew up to the ski lodge for another week of recuperation.

She was in no rush to get back to the king’s business.

While she was still in the hospital, a reply came to Jack’s message about how Texarkana was proving to be more dangerous than they’d expected.

Grampa Ray was very sorry to hear that. No, he didn’t remember why he’d hanged a man eighty years ago. No, he could not grant Jack’s implied request that the mission be canceled. He really needed matters on Texarkana resolved in a fashion that kept his critical alliance on Pitts Hope viable. Kris should watch her step and do the job she’d been sent to do.

“You got to love Grampa,” Kris said after reading the message flimsy and handing it back to Jack.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Jack said. “I’m sending a message through Marine channels asking for a full set of replacements. Do you think I should ask to have them ready on Wardhaven, or do you want them sent here?”

Kris shrugged. “I don’t know, Jack. You call it. I want to get out of here as soon as I can ride a shuttle up to the Wasp. Doc says I need a week or so.”

“I’ll have the replacements wait on Wardhaven.”

A thought crossed Kris’s mind. “Jack, correct me if I’m wrong, but has anyone told me not to come back to Texarkana?”

“No,” Jack said slowly. “Even after we turned loose of that cowpoke we held a couple of days. There is the matter of the vendetta. I don’t think it would be a good idea to vacation here, but no one in power has actually told you they’ll jail you if you show your face here again.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Jack, this is the first planet I’ve ever helped that will actually let me back. That’s a great feeling right . . .” Kris started to use her good hand to strike her heart, but thought better of it. “Come to think of it, no part of me feels all that great.”

“You’re getting better,” Jack insisted.

After the wedding, the flight to the lodge got more exciting than Kris cared for. Thunderheads moved in, lightning put on quite a show, flashing from cloud to cloud and cloud to ground. The pilot of the plane said this was normal along the front range this time of year, and took a circuitous route.

Kris still got bounced around. For the first time in her life, she lost the slim pickings she’d eaten at the reception. It was humiliating to use a “burp bag.”

“I hope I haven’t lost my space legs,” she said, more frightened now than she’d been since she woke up.

“You’ll get over this. It takes a bit of time, Kris,” Jack assured her.

She did her best to believe him.

The lodge was very relaxing. The boffins were having a ball. The Marines were enjoying themselves, though most went about their fun with rifles slung down their fronts.

Kris had a cottage all to herself, surrounded by cottages with her staff and armed Marines. She got to watch deer graze from her front porch. At Cara’s insistence, Kris joined her in a walk around a local trail that seemed made for Kris’s powered wheelchair. They spotted elk, wolves, and a mother bear with two cubs.

Cara squealed silently with glee.

The Marines with Kris just as quietly pulled back the arming bolts on their M-6s. In time, the bears left.

At least that mom was smart enough not to cross a Longknife.

Kris found it hard to sleep. Maybe she wasn’t getting enough exercise to need the rest. Maybe it was the dreams that woke her up in a sweat when she did sleep.

One morning, about 0200, she gave up on sleep and rolled out of her cottage in her chair. The moon was full and up, reflecting off the huge swimming pool. She parked herself where she had a good view of the diamonds reflecting off the water and listened to the night sounds of the woods around her.

And heard footsteps.

Holding her breath, she waited.

An Iteeche walked quietly up to the pool. No, not any Iteeche, it was Ron. She’d been so busy with her own problems she’d hardly thought of him.

He dropped his robes beside the pool and stood for a moment nude in the moonlight. He was so sleek he almost seemed to gleam. Not willing to deny herself a bit of girlish curiosity, she checked him out.

He showed plenty of muscle, but of the equipment men are so proud of, nothing.

His dive into the water was as graceful as he looked. He swam, hands and arms moving smoothly through the water, much faster than a human could. He did two fast laps before pulling himself up on the side to sit with his back to Kris.

After a moment, his breath slowed.

“You spawning?” Kris asked. The radio on the wheelchair must have been tied into one of Nelly’s kids. It translated Kris’s words into Iteeche.

He jumped to his feet, spun around, then froze as he spotted Kris. “You startled me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just sitting here. Not much of a threat,” Kris said, indicating her wheelchair with a wave of her good hand.

“You Longknifes are always a threat. Even dead, I’d fear you.”

“You almost had your chance,” Kris said.

“I am glad you survived this assassination attempt. You seem to have them almost as often as I do.”

“Who told you?” Kris asked, while noting down that Ron’s life was as much at risk as hers.

“Cara. She was very worried about you. She’s figured out how to have her computer listen in on your main network so she can keep track of your condition.”

“I’ll have Nelly look into that,” Kris said, then remembered Nelly wasn’t in any shape to look into anything. How was it that she hadn’t already moved heaven and earth to turn Nelly back on? The drugs were part of it; even if she tried, she could not work up a good worry about anything. Also, no one before tonight had let her get involved in anything that had her thinking about Nelly.

Was that intentional on her team’s part? Probably. How much longer would she stay down? When would it be time for her to get back on the horse?

It was kind of hard to ride any horse when she was tied to an electric set of wheels.

“You are quiet,” Ron said. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No! No. It was me getting lost in thought. Something I do a lot of these days. What are you doing here? Spawning?” Kris said, trying to change the subject. “Do I need to warn the other girls about you swimming upstream?”

“Hardly. They use chemicals to keep this water so clear. The water is too harsh for anything to spawn, to live, to grow. But your water is so clear. One can swim in it without fear of being attacked out of the dark and deep. This is a joy to swim in. It is almost holy, this life is so, so . . .”

“Safe?”

“Yes. This water is safe. There is nothing to fear in it. Is all your water like this?”

“I could probably take you to a river stream. Most of them run fresh and clear. Of course, a bigger fish could be hiding behind a rock or in the shadow of a deep pool.”

“But if you had a child, you would hold its hand as it walked in the water.”

“I would hold its hand. I would teach her how to swim and be safe in the water. Yes, Ron, that is what a mother does.”

“That is why you take such care of Cara. Still, it was so strange for us to come across you in deep space out beyond the Rim with an immature one in your entourage.”

“She lost her mother and sister. Abby was all she had left. We took her in.”

“And her father?”

“I think he spawned and swam away.”

“So you are not always that different from us.”

“Don’t any of your adults keep an eye on their offspring?”

“That is an interesting question. Truly the Emperor and his consorts spawn in their own tidal pool. It would seem that anyone chosen from that pond would be of their own flesh, would it not?”

“I would guess so.”

“Others of the court have their spawning ponds. Of course, none of the court would spawn in the same water used by farmers.

“That is what I do not like about you, Kris Longknife. You humans make me question what a good Iteeche does not see. Never even thinks of questioning.”

“You’ll get no sympathy from me. Since meeting you, I’ve had to question way too much that I was told in school.”

“Is that good?”

“I think so. What about you?”

“My advisors are ready to cut their throats, to make amends for the words I have said to them and they have said to me.”

“All of them, the Navy officer, too?”

“No. He just looks at me like my chooser sometimes does. Looks at me as if he thinks I might someday be worthy of walking on four legs and not have been a waste of choice.”

Somewhere, a wolf howled. Ron jumped at the sound, went into a fighting stance. Kris remembered wolves crying to the moon at their summer cottage by the lake outside Wardhaven City. Even without the drugs, she would not have reacted that strongly.

“You are safe,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Ron asked, his eyes still searching the hills and mountains above the lodge.

“There are Marines walking the perimeter tonight. The Wasp will pass above us and scan the area. Yes, we’re safe here. Now.”

“But will your great-grandfather be able to offer us safety against the unknown that does not howl yet takes our lives?”

“That I don’t know.”

“You had a message from him.”

“Yes. Jack thought I ought to close down this mission, hike up my skirts, and run for the hills.”

“I think Jack was right.”

“Actually, we’ve learned that the man who threw the bombs was not aiming for me. His target was the guy I was with.”

“That is unusual, from what I have learned from Cara.”

“Yes, that is unusual.”

“Did your great-grandfather say anything about what he was doing about my problem when he messaged you about your problem?”

“No. But I wasn’t really expecting him to risk talking about it in a message.”

“It was coded, was it not?”

“It was coded using the very best cipher.”

Ron just looked at Kris. If he’d had eyebrows, she suspected he’d have raised one.

“I should be able to take a shuttle launch in a few days. We’ll head back then. You will get your report before too long.”

Ron stood to dive back in. “I wish you could swim with me.”

“I can’t even crawl at the moment.”

“Maybe someday we will swim together. Maybe, someday, even if we cannot spawn, we can still make something that will bridge the gap between our people.”

“Maybe someday,” Kris said. She wasn’t sure Ron heard her. He began his dive as soon as he finished speaking. He swam four fast laps, then climbed from the far end of the pool, gathered his robes, and left for his quarters.

Kris turned her chair away from the pool and started up the path to her cottage. She passed a Marine walking his guard route. He nodded at her. She smiled back at him.

There was no privacy for her or Ron. If it wasn’t a guard looking in on them while walking his rounds, it would be the photo coverage of the Wasp three hundred kilometers overhead. Someday she would get tired of living in this fishbowl.

Someday, but not today. Or tomorrow. Jack would make sure she was in a fishbowl tomorrow and every day he had a say in it.

That was what it meant to be a Longknife.