Kris gave Jack’s hand a sad squeeze. If the sorrow on his face was a reflection of hers, they were a pretty sorry lot. It looked like the clock had struck twelve, and Cinderella would have to turn back into a princess and the prince would have to turn back into a Marine captain.
There were several obscene things Kris would have liked to say; what she did say to Captain Drago was, “Get ready to receive the king. I’ll get back to the fleet landing as fast as I can. What acceleration is the fleet putting on?”
“One and a half gees. Somebody wants to get here quick. I’m told they’ll arrive in eighteen hours.”
“Issue a recall as gently as you can. Let’s not scare the natives, heavy or otherwise.”
“I understand. Prepare for a royal visit. Get the ship shipshape and Bristol fashion.”
“You know the drill. I’ll have to warn Granny Rita.”
“You forgot, Nelly put me on your net,” said Granny interrupting. “We’ll talk as soon as you get back into town.”
“We’ll see you soon, Granny,” Kris said.
“Damn,” said the old lady for Kris.
Kris looked at Jack. “The Sakura must have made a fast passage, and Grampa Ray must have left immediately.” She found herself shaking her head.
At that moment, their meal arrived. Kris gave the waitress a princess-caliber smile, and said, “I’m sorry, we’ll have to be leaving.”
“But why?” the young woman asked.
As Kris stood, a glance around told her that those at the table close by had heard an earful they didn’t know how to interpret. Never a good idea.
Kris cleared her throat and spoke in the voice that made crews snap to, even if it meant dying. “I appreciate the privacy that all of you have afforded Jack and me for the last several days. Many of you recognized me from the interview I gave the Alwan news media. I am Princess Kris Longknife, a lieutenant commander in the Royal United Society Navy and the senior Navy officer present on the research frigate Wasp, above your heads. The good news is that the U.S. has just reinforced its fleet presence in the defense of Alwa with over half a dozen ships. Humanity is not forgetting you, but coming to your defense.”
Kris paused while the dining room exploded with joyous shouts and applause.
“Please feel free to pass that information along to any of your friends. I’d appreciate if you could avoid mentioning that it came from a nearly naked princess.”
“And what’s wrong with being naked, nearly or totally?” a nearly naked woman asked.
“In some parts of human space, like wherever my mother is at the moment, anything close to naked is frowned upon.” Well, most balls Kris had attended had a few women in gowns that skimped on just about everything, but other than at formal occasions, Mother was quite sure of her dress code.
The woman who’d raised the question suggested that human space do something that, while Kris would love doing it with Jack, it was probably biologically impossible for a huge area of vacuum to manage.
When the general laughter died down, Kris held up her hands and got silence.
“The sad news is that with the fleet arriving, I have to cut my vacation short and go back to being a Navy officer. I’ve enjoyed your company, and I look forward to returning when my schedule allows, but I must leave immediately.”
Kris and Jack made their way to the door, slowly, shaking many a hand and getting lots of hugs. At the door, the owner waited. “You are welcome here at any time, and your money will never be good so long as I own this place, or my kids. Please come back when you can. We have a truck we use to make trips to town. My son will have it at your cottage in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll be ready,” Kris said.
After another hug, Kris and Jack made their final good-bye and jogged toward their cottage, in step and by cadence.
Their vacation was vanishing by the second.
They hastily donned their uniforms. The spider silks were tossed in their bags; there was no time to pull themselves into that tight confinement. Besides, once topside, they’d need to shower and change into clean uniforms. Probably dress uniforms.
It was the king paying a visit.
And he very likely wouldn’t care for what he found.
“Do you think King Raymond expects to haul the entire human colony off this planet? Is that what the huge ships are? Transports?” Jack asked.
“Transports with a battleship’s broadside?” Kris pointed out.
“Nothing about this makes sense,” Jack concluded.
“In some weird way, it does to Ray Longknife,” Kris said.
They were dressed and packed in ten minutes. Kris glanced at the bed. Could they have taken a few moments for a fast one? Did she want her final memory of this to be something of sweaty haste? Better to go forward without looking back.
A teenager arrived early. They tossed their gear in the back of the truck and shared the narrow cab with a hero-worshipping young man who wanted to know everything about human space and repeatedly told them he planned to visit there. “But I’ll come back here. There’s no place better to live. Have you ever been to a better resort than Dad’s?”
Kris allowed that she hadn’t, and had to repeat it several times in the drive back.
Two hours later, they pulled up to Granny Rita’s home. It was a nice adobe two-story, built around an open garden court with a fountain and pond in the middle. Clearly, it had been meant to house a large family.
Three teenagers came out to carry their two bags. A mother provided supervision in case any should be needed.
Kris and Jack said their good-bye to the boy, who told them he wasn’t going anywhere until the truck’s batteries recharged. The mother gave him directions, needed or not, to the nearest recharging station.
An older couple, likely Granny’s own kid and spouse, hurried them inside and across the plaza. “You must do something,” the man said. “She’s insistent that she go up to the Wasp to meet Raymond. I think another shuttle launch could kill her.”
“I think she wants to go out that way,” the woman said. “Who can fault her for going? If it kills her, it saves her from having to confront him.”
The man did not dispute his wife’s opinion.
“Granny Rita is not getting on any shuttle I control,” Kris said flatly. “I will not have her death on my hands. God knows, I’ve got enough of them on my soul. Hers is not going to be added, and that is that.”
“You don’t know Granny Rita,” the man said.
Jack snorted. “You don’t know Kris Longknife.”
That settled the discussion until they got to Granny Rita’s suite of rooms.
The old woman was packing several bags. “I don’t know what Raymond will want to do. You say he’s a king. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a ball. Somewhere around here, I have a ball gown.”
“Mother, you cut it up to make clothes for me and Tina when we were small. I remember you telling us the story. We’ve handed them down, generation to generation.”
The old woman looked up. “I guess I forgot. Young woman, those pills you gave me don’t seem to be working as well as promised.”
“You haven’t been taking them as long as you were told,” Kris shot back.
“Well, however it goes, I must meet Raymond on the Wasp when he arrives.”
“No, Granny, you will meet Raymond here, on your own turf,” Kris said.
“I’m going up,” Granny Rita said with all the stubbornness of her years.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, Granny.”
Granny Rita settled into a chair and eyed Kris. “The easy way is?”
“You will not be allowed on any shuttle under my command. Last time I checked, they’re all under my command.”
“So what happened to Captain Drago being the Wasp’s skipper?” Granny demanded.