“The Yellow Comet of the Comet lines. Her captain, Sam Tidings, owes you. You rescued his daughter. She was a docent at that charity art auction you attended. The one that got shot up. You and your man, Captain Montoya, fell on top of her and protected her from the auto cannon.”
“Yes,” Kris said. She remembered the big-breasted Samantha Tidings. Jack had thrown himself on her and hadn’t even bounced. Both Kris and Jack had taken a lot of cannon fire. And had been black-and-blue and hurting for quite a while after. Body armor, at least what they’d had at the time, stopped bullets. It left the bullet’s energy to be absorbed by the flesh below.
One or two shots were no problem. An auto cannon on full automatic was something else entirely.
“I take it that Tidings’s Yellow Comet makes no claim to sovereignty?”
“All too true,” Juan said, “but the accommodations are much better, and he brags about his chefs.”
“Any suggestions how I get aboard unnoticed?”
“I have a few.”
14
The next morning was full of surprises.
The steamer trunk Kris had used to board the Archie showed up along with the second one, which had mysteriously appeared. Captain Luna had dropped them on the pier after Kris left with her police escort. It had taken a while for them to get through customs; there was a reason Abby rarely let the contents of her trade be examined. It also took several calls to get it sent to Senior Chief Inspector Martinez’s home.
Kris suspected she’d better get out fast before more than just her luggage caught up with her.
But the next surprise was delightful.
“Is my great-granddaughter in here somewhere?” came as Estella answered an insistent knock at the door. Senior Inspector Martinez was already on his wrist talking to Inspector Johnson and had a picture of who was at the door before it was answered.
“Gramma Ruth!” Kris shouted. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Young woman, I survived the Iteeche and your grampa Trouble. I can smell a relative if I’m on the same planet with her. Oh, and I keep Bronc supplied with the latest new games and hacker programs. You don’t honestly think he would keep his auntie Ruth from knowing that Kris was back in town?”
Kris breathed a sigh of relief. Bronc to Gramma Ruth, or Gramma Trouble, as she seemed to be today, was a risk Kris could accept.
Gramma Ruth held Kris out at arm’s length for a look. “You don’t seem to be much the worse for letting that scoundrel Ray run you around on his leash.”
“The last bit of trouble I did myself,” Kris admitted.
“Says you. That man could manipulate the sun out of the sky if he felt the need. You headed back to Wardhaven?”
“I’m a fugitive, Gramma, wanted for crimes against humanity on a hundred and fifty plus planets. Do you really want to know where I’m going next?”
“Maybe not. But if you’re headed for Wardhaven, I might be able to arrange for you to see the man you want to see.”
“If I were going to Wardhaven, I have no idea who I’d want to see. Grampa Ray and Father have issued arrest warrants for me, and I don’t think Grampa Al much likes me, either.”
“Why would you want to see them? I mean the man you really want to see.”
“And who would that be?”
“Jack. The fellow you were making cow eyes at the last time you were here.”
“I was not making cow eyes at Jack!”
“Says you. Remember, I’m your Gramma Ruth. I grew up on a farm. I know cow eyes when I see them, girl.”
“Gramma, I really need to be getting out of here. If you’ve found me, people with guns can find me.”
“Piffle. I’m a lot smarter than the average person with a gun. And me with a class to teach in fifteen minutes. Young woman, you have got to quit traipsing around the galaxy and sit a spell with your Gramma Ruth. We need to watch the grass grow.”
“All I ever grow are weeds, Gramma.”
“Says you. Okay, I see that cop eyeing me and his watch. Take care, kiddo,” and with a peck on the cheek, the whirlwind known as Gramma Ruth was gone.
“How am I getting on the Yellow Comet,” Kris asked, “and how soon?”
“In that,” Juan said, pointing at the steamer trunk, “and right away. The sooner you get off this planet, the happier I and a whole lot of elephants above me will be.”
“That sounds like a deal. Will you or Penny lead my trunk aboard?”
“Penny,” Juan said.
The aforementioned intelligence officer came out from the back room, dressed like a wealthy, if nearly hundred-year-old, matron. “What did you say about me, deary? I don’t hear so well.” She was stooped over and struggling with a cane.
Kris let herself be locked into her trunk.
It was just as dark and claustrophobic as before. Kris located her little box of pills, took one, and trusted Penny to get her to someplace safe in the next two or three hours.
15
“So what do you think of our quarters this time?” Penny asked a groggy Kris as light streamed into her slightly opened steamer trunk.
Kris yawned and stretched. That brought her up against the boundaries of her trunk. She pushed it open wider and stood. Her new quarters were a whole lot smaller than her last. Several of this room would fit quite comfortably into the sitting room on the Archie. And this room, and a small bathroom off to one side, were all there was.
Still, it was larger than her stateroom on the Wasp.
But then, she hadn’t shared that room with Penny.
There was one comfortable-looking chair, a desk with its own station chair, and a bed. Two could likely sleep in it if they didn’t mind being too friendly . . . and if one of them didn’t roam around the bed at night.
Kris had never shared a bed with anyone in her life.
“Think we could order a cot in?” Kris asked.
“And what would one old maid need with a bed and a cot?” Penny answered with a raised eyebrow.
“You have a point,” Kris agreed, and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from making a face at the prospects before her.
“Your Highness, we are on the run, you know,” said Penny, her eyes sparkling.
“All too truly,” Kris said, pushing her trunk open more and stepping out. Beside her trunk was the other, as yet undiscovered, one. Kris eyed it, wondering at its contents.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Penny asked, her voice coming out cranky and creaky.
“Captain Tidings,” came back, and the monitor on the door came alive to show a middle-aged man in a gray merchant-marine uniform with four stripes on the sleeve.
“Please come in,” Penny said, and the door admitted him.
“I’m glad to see that you both made it on board, Your Highness,” the captain said with a smile and an offered hand. “I never had a chance last time you were on Eden to thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”
Kris shook the offered hand and found herself smiling back. “I did have to leave precipitously.”
“Yes. I never did understand that. I know that many of your Marines were injured while saving so very many of us, but I should have thought that you could get care just as well on Eden as on Wardhaven.”
So, Kris thought, once again, what politics ordered was not necessarily what politics confessed to have done. “We do what we are told,” Kris said.
“Well, I’m glad that I can do something for you now. If you wish, I can open the room next door for you. You are our only set of passengers.”
“Set?” Kris said.
“Yes. I’ve officially signed aboard Mrs. Travaford and her traveling companion and medical assistant, Stephanie Ootlaw. Line policy allows me to open up vacant rooms for the comfort of such important passengers as Mrs. Travaford.” With that he produced a key pad, tapped a few numbers, and a loud click came from the restroom.