Kris gave the doc a thankful smile. With any luck, the woman would have the two men to herself, and Vicky would spend the game sleeping her whiskey binge off. As the doc guided her patient into the passageway, Kris whispered a thankful prayer. At least one of Vicky’s friends had survived the sudden death of the Fury.
Kris closed the door, waited a moment, and said, “Did you put out a call for her, Nelly?”
“Yes, I did, Kris. From the looks of things, there was a fifty-fifty chance that you two would soon be burning any bridges that you had so far built between your two families. It was either call for Maggie or order up some hot dogs and marshmallows to roast. Since I lack the facilities to enjoy hot dogs and marshmallows, I thought the doc was the better of the choices.”
Kris had to chuckle at Nelly’s joke. “Thank you, Nelly.”
“Now, Kris, if I had hands and feet, I’d empty what’s left in that bottle down your sink, but I don’t. Should I call Abby to come in and do the honors?”
“No,” Kris said, with a long sigh. She paced off the distance to where the bottle lay, with more trepidation than she’d felt in any of her firefights. Holding the bottle at arm’s length did not reduce any of its aroma or allure.
Kris hardly dared to breathe until the last drop had gone down her sink. “Now what do I do with the bottle?” she wondered.
“If you leave it in the trash can, it will smell up the place all night,” Nelly said. “And you don’t need that.”
Kris noticed that the blower was on high, circulating the air in the compartment at an accelerated pace.
“You could leave it outside in the passageway. Some sailor on cleanup detail would take it away.”
“And what are the odds that any sailor who took it, or emptied my trash can, would pass the word that the princess is drinking again.”
“Better than fifty-fifty,” Nelly agreed.
Kris pulled on a pair of gym shorts and went looking for a public disposal to get rid of the evidence.
Sleep came slowly when at last she was able to lie down.
Why am I alive when so many others are dead?
Kris had done as good a job of dodging that question as anyone else. She dodged it for the simple reason she had no answer for it.
People beside her took bullets and died. She took a bomb or two and kept on breathing. Was that a blessing or a curse?
Kris had no answer. She doubted that even Grampa Trouble had a good comeback that he could share with her. Next time they met, she’d have to ask him, anyway.
The luck of the draw was a lousy answer, but it was all she had.
With that very little comfort, she drifted off to sleep.
51
The question of who would go into the reactor, or the reaction-mass plasma-mixing chamber, or whatever, came quickly to mind as the reports came in on their next jump.
The solar system was blessedly empty of life and hostilities.
It was roughly on the path Nelly said would take them back home.
The system was also very sparse. All it boasted was a small yellow sun and a few rocky planets too close to the sun to support life.
Other than that, the system was dust, some asteroids, and a few passing comets.
“There are some jumps out of here, aren’t there, Chief?” Captain Drago asked as the long litany of nothing went on.
“There is one of Nelly’s fuzzy jumps not too far away. It won’t take us long to get there at our present speed.”
“Sulwan, set a course for it,” Captain Drago ordered. “Use as little reaction mass as you can.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll use a quarter gee to aim us at that puppy, then close down the engines. The chief is right, with the speed we have on the boat, we’ll be seeing what’s on the other side of that jump in half a day at most.”
“And I don’t want to hear any quips about a Flying Dutchman from anyone of the bridge crew, you hear me?”
“Yes, Captain,” came back from all hands.
“Good. Commodore Longknife, I’d like a word with you in my quarters. And bring that damn computer of yours as well.”
“Yes, sir,” came in two-part harmony.
NELLY, DOWN GIRL.
BUT HE ASKED FOR ME!
YES, HE DID. NOW ENJOY THE VINDICATION AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT UNLESS HE TALKS DIRECTLY TO YOU.
THAT’S WHAT I INTENDED TO DO, KRIS. I AM NOT AS INEXPERIENCED AT HUMAN AFFAIRS AS SAY CARA.
GOOD.
Kris and the captain stayed in their seats until Sulwan took the spin off the Wasp. Moving around in even a quarter gee was not to be tried when the ship was spinning like a top.
Captain Drago’s in-space cabin was a tiny thing, with just enough room for a desk and a bunk. He took the desk chair, and Kris found a handhold to keep her in place as the Wasp settled on its course and went to free fall.
Standing there, holding on, seemed rather tiresome, so Kris pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged in midair. She smiled at the thought that she must look like some sort of genie.
Captain Drago allowed himself a dry smile. “I’m glad to see you’re getting your space legs.”
“Or space seat,” Kris quipped.
“There you humans go, telling jokes and not letting me in on the fun.”
“Nelly, you said you’d only talk when talked to.”
“Oops, sorry, Your High-Handedness.”
“I’m glad your pet rock is in fine fettle,” Captain Drago said. “Nelly, show us our course so far.”
His wall screen suddenly became a view of the Milky Way from above. Human space was tiny, but it was marked with HOME in a font that was fit for a classic hand-embroidered sampler. From it were a series of white dots, taking them from Wardhaven to Santa Maria to their wanderings. The battle was marked with a flashing red dot, and their flight since then was green.
“Thank you, Nelly,” the captain said. “What is your estimate of where the next two jumps will take us if we keep up this speed?”
Their present location sprouted a cone of probability that widened even more as it extended a second time for that jump. It showed them getting close to human space. It also gave them a twenty-five-percent probability of landing somewhere in the Iteeche Empire.
Captain Drago gnawed his lower lip as he studied Nelly’s estimate. Then he turned to Kris. “I hadn’t planned on refueling in this system. Still, I don’t much like the look of it, either. Choosing not to refuel is one thing. Not having a choice to refuel is something else entirely different. You have an opinion?”
“Captain, I’ve left the ship driving to you,” Kris pointed out.
“But you’re the princess who needs to make a report to the king, my dear. It wouldn’t do to have us declare war on some bug-eyed monster and you not get home to warn the home front of what’s coming our way.”
“They aren’t bug-eyed monsters,” Nelly pointed out. “In fact, they look amazingly like you humans.”
“Thank you for pointing that out,” Kris said. “Whatever they look like, they’re acting like bug-eyed monsters. And that is what I’ll call them until they’re kind enough to tell us what they want us to call them. Right, Captain?”
“It’s a human thing, Nelly,” the captain said.
Kris found his rather amazing acceptance of Nelly’s viewpoint startling. But then, he couldn’t value her for setting his course and keep thinking of her as a rock, could he?
“Thank you, sir,” Nelly said.
“Captain, for what my views are worth, I suggest we take each jump one at a time. If we go through the next jump, and there are several large gas bags, then we slow down and refuel. If the next system is the same as this system, we keep on going.”