“Do I need to smile when I take a shower?” Abby asked, giving Jack a most unhappy kind of smile.
“I’d never tell you when to smile, Abby,” Jack said right back.
“Are we locking the barn door after it’s burned to the ground?” Colonel Cortez asked.
“She’s still alive,” Jack said. “The barn ain’t burned all that far down, as I see it.”
“Enough, boys,” Kris cut in. “Penny, do we have any idea who or why or what the target was?”
“Sorry, Kris, all I’ve got is how and when,” Penny said. “The really fun stuff is still more guesswork than hard evidence.”
“Try some of your guesses on me,” Kris said.
“The bomb glass was on a table in the Peterwald area of the lounge. That hints at this being a Peterwald problem.”
“But if it had gone off while the lounge was full . . .” Jack started.
“There’d be a whole lot of us breathing space,” Kris finished.
“No way we could have evacuated the lounge,” Penny said. “And with a lot of people in the way, the sealants would have had a lot more problems closing the holes than they did.”
Kris had a sudden picture of bodies and sealant halfblocking the holes in the hull. The lucky people had their legs out in space. The unlucky ones had their heads out there. It was not pretty.
With a shiver, Kris turned to Abby. “Okay, my favorite spy, what kind of threat picture were you able to put together?”
“Me, I turned it over to Mata Hari and went to sleep.”
“Mata Hari?” Jack said.
“Yes. Nelly’s been after me to use her computer more. To name her kid.”
“And not turn her off,” Nelly put in.
“So I named her Mata Hari and gave her the data dump I’d been ignoring. What’d you find, girl?”
“It was very interesting,” a dusky alto voice said from Abby’s neckline. Apparently, the name change from Trixi to Mata Hari had included a number of changes in attitude.
“Mata Hari,” the colonel said. “Didn’t she get shot?”
“Yes,” Abby agreed. “But they issued the firing squad the blindfolds, not her.”
“I’ve heard that story,” Kris said.
“It isn’t true,” Mata Hari said.
“So, what have you got for us?” Kris asked.
“I am sorry to say it, but I think Abby was right to save her important time for other things,” her computer said. “There are a lot of interesting things going on in human space, but most of it is just dishing the dirt on this or that person.”
Abby grinned widely.
“Tell me some of it,” Kris said. “It’s not like I’m pushed for time here.”
“There is the matter of the recent remarriage of his Imperial Highness Henry I of Greenfeld. His bride was announcing her pregnancy almost immediately, and her insistence on carrying the baby in her own body. ‘No tin can for our baby,’ as she put it. The court gossip has him eating out of her hand . . . and checking in on her every five minutes.”
“So much for big bad Harry, uh,” Penny said.
“Tell her, Mattie,” Abby said, dryly.
“What I find interesting,” the computer said as she went on, “is that she is from the Hollenzoller family, and major players in N.S. Holdings.”
“And we took down their little slave empire at Port Royal,” Kris said.
“Yes, there is that,” Mattie said. “And that the lovely Imperial Empress has already had the baby tested. It’s a boy!”
“Oh, and it’s definitely Harry’s,” Mattie added.
“I wonder how Vicky feels about this,” Kris said.
“Do you think there are several reasons why she’s taking this little vacation from court?” Penny said.
“And as far away from court as she could get?” the colonel offered.
“Not far enough, apparently,” Jack concluded.
“So, one empty glass bomb,” Kris said, “takes care of one of those damn Longknife troublemakers and clears the path to the throne for a poor kid that ain’t even taken a suck of his mother’s milk.”
“If I was that kid, I’d have that milk tested for poison,” Abby put in.
“I doubt if the milk has to be poisoned,” the colonel said. “It’s likely poisoned direct from the source.”
“That may not be all the answer as to who and why,” Penny said, when the chuckles died down.
“Don’t you just hate it when a good answer to our problem gets wet water thrown on it,” Abby said dryly.
“Is there any other kind of water but wet?” Mattie asked.
“It’s a figure of human speech, child,” Nelly said. “You’ll have to get used to such things. And you will if a certain human doesn’t keep turning you off.”
Kris cleared her throat. “I believe Penny has the floor. You were suggesting there was more to our problem than just what Abby and Mata Hari had turned up, I think.”
“Yes. My forensic folks are puzzling over a bit of a problem. That olive detonator or what is left of it. We lost a lot of it to space, but the damage-control system kept enough of the detonator inside for us to discover a problem. It went off five minutes late.”
“For which I am very happy,” Kris said.
“No. I didn’t say that right,” Penny said. “It wasn’t that it was set for five minutes later. It was set to explode while the room was overflowing with officers and good cheer. It counted down to just that moment. Then, instead of going boom, it waited for five minutes.”
“Where’d that extra five minutes come from?” Jack asked.
“We have no idea,” Penny said.
“Could there have been a second detonator? One that responded to a remote detonation order?” the colonel asked.
“We’ve found no evidence of a second one,” Penny said. “It’s not like we have a lot of bomb residue, but we found enough of the olive to know what it was and what it wasn’t doing. We should have found enough of a remote detonator to know that it was there.”
That left the room in a puzzled silence.
Kris spoke her thoughts as they came to her. “What are the chances that the Hollenzoller family has its own set of opposition? Someone who bought a five-minute delay for their kaboom machine.” Kris shook her head, that was just guesswork.
Then she went on. “Is there any idea who might have done this?” Kris asked. “Has anyone up and suddenly vanished?
“The Wasp has no one missing,” Penny said, “except for the poor fellow who went out the hole in the hull. He’s been recovered. None of the other ships report anyone missing. It’s not like we can do a lot of questioning aboard the other fleets’ ships.”
“So we are once again at a dead end,” Kris said.
“There seems to be no lack of them in supply,” Abby said.
“Kris, do you want to take a call from Phil Taussig?” Nelly asked.
“Of course. How’s it going, Phil?”
“Likely better for me than it is for you,” came from a smiling face now featured on one of the Tac Center’s wall screens.
“To what do I owe this early call?”
“I’m ready to get out of here, Princess, before anything more interesting happens around you.”
“So soon?” Kris said, and really meant it.
“I didn’t have anything better to do with my night,” he said, with a chuckle. “ And opening more space between you and my vulnerable body seemed like a good idea. I’ve got the Constant Star ready to move out. Lieutenant Song has the Hermes equally ready to get under way.”