“What have you managed to come up with?” Kris said. Hating herself for what she did, still, she found herself leaning forward, away from Jack, to better hear what Grampa Trouble whispered.
“When your aunt Trudy went off after alien relics, she left me a note. If I needed info-warfare help in her absence, I could talk to her sidekick from the old days of the Iteeche war, Sara Powers. A freethinker in those days, she caused a lot of people a lot of trouble. Some of it actually helped the war effort.”
“You’re complaining about someone causing you trouble?” Penny slipped in.
“She didn’t pay her dues to my troublemaker’s union, the scab,” Grampa said with a scowl that curled up too much at the edge of his lips. “I told her what I wanted, and she asked me no questions, just three days later dropped this mass storage chip in my hand after we’d gotten together for lunch to talk about old times.”
Kris noticed a storage chip between Grampa’s fingers. She thought of reaching for it, but didn’t. He’d pass it to her when he wanted her to have it, at a time and place of his choosing. There might be no visible security cameras in there, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
Suddenly, Colonel Hancock sat up even straighter. “I’m getting activity on the police band. Much of it’s coded, but it’s all addressed to this sector of town.”
Grampa Trouble frowned. “Nelly, did you try to connect to the net?”
“Yes. On the station I used all my certificates, including the secret ones.”
Grampa was already starting to stand. “Kris, did you use your credit chit to get down the beanstalk?”
“No, Grampa. The skipper of the Yellow Comet gave me some gift chits.”
“Bought here or on Eden?”
“I’d guess Eden.”
“We need to be gone,” Grampa said, standing. The softness of his words were countered by the urgency of his movements. “The rear exit is out past the loos.”
20
Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile found his team already hard at work as he walked into the squad bay. His boss was also waiting for him.
“What’s this all about?” she demanded.
“Princess Kristine Longknife has returned to Wardhaven, and the Prime Minister wants us to apprehend her,” he said curtly. “Rick, did you get that security coverage?”
“Yes, sir, and based on what you told me to tell Leslie, I’ve already scanned for the princess. No joy. If she’s up there, she’s still on the ship that brought her.”
“Or she’s evaded us,” Mahomet, always the dour one, put in.
“The Prime Minister is betting with you,” Foile said.
Leslie looked up from her computer screen. “The last reported location, no, make that last rumored location for the princess was on New Eden. Did we have a ship from there dock recently?”
“One,” Rick reported. “The Yellow Comet. I’ve got the coverage of it. Only some crew and two old ladies left it.”
“Two old ladies?” echoed everyone in the room.
“Here’s the take,” Rick said, bringing up the two putative old ladies and the analysis of the recognition system. “Neither one of them is six feet tall. The way both of them walk, neither of them is a Navy officer. And the several looks we got at their faces. Ugly. Way ugly.”
“Two steamer trunks,” Leslie said.
“What about the steamer trunks?”
“Maybe nothing, but when you read a color report on the princess, or her maid, the better ones talk about the steamer trunks that follow them when they’re off on a mission. The maid, Abby, can pull the darnedest things out of those trunks.”
“Follow those two,” Foile ordered. “Recognition program, estimate height of the tallest one if she wasn’t all hunched over.”
The response 5'11" to 6'1" appeared on the screen.
“Get a security team from the station to search that ship,” Foile ordered.
His boss made the arrangements immediately.
“Rick, where’d those two nice old ladies go?”
“The space-elevator station. They paid, ah, with gift credit chits.”
“Bought where?”
“Eden.”
“Show me them at the downside station.”
Rick did.
“They’ve still got the two big trunks,” Leslie pointed out. “They can’t be too hard to follow with those things.”
The camera showed them storing the luggage.
“Or not,” Leslie added.
“Have a team collect those trunks,” Foile said, and his boss made it so.
“They caught a cab,” Rick pointed out.
“Mahomet, get me a list of all fares taken from the beanstalk station within five minutes of that time.”
“On it, boss. Got it,” Mahomet, shouted a second later. “Two women, from station to a place called the Smuggler’s Roost. It’s in a bad part of town. Why would two old ladies go there?”
“We need a full response team at that location,” Foile said, heading for the door. His team was up and following him as his boss called in the world on that little dive.
21
With no further urging from General Trouble, they were up and moving. Penny slowed them down a bit with her cane, but a little old lady racing out of there would be a clear giveaway.
Steeling her heart, Kris let go of Jack’s hand and got busy being elsewhere. It was easier since Jack was right behind her. In a moment, they were out the back. In the distance, a siren could be heard. Maybe that was normal in this part of town, but it seemed to be getting closer. Then it went silent.
“Ungood,” Grampa Trouble said. “Colonel, did you bring a car?”
“I borrowed one from a friend. I do still have a few of them.” He pointed at a beat-up coupe parked across the street, and they headed for it, Penny in the lead. Her cane was now held more as a club, no hobbling now.
The car chirped as the doors unlocked. Kris found herself with a wonderful excuse to cuddle up to Jack. The backseat was close for three, and the car was cold.
“Does this thing have a heater?” Grampa Trouble asked from the front passenger seat.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Colonel Hancock said as he put it in gear and pulled away from the curb in one smooth motion.
And stopped at the first stop sign.
The colonel turned them onto a potholed four-lane road with a railroad track down the middle that took them away from the Smuggler’s Roost. He held his speed down to well below the limit.
“Good,” Grampa Trouble said.
“Mind filling us fugitives from the law of averages in on what’s going on?” Penny asked.
“I guess you deserve some words of warning,” Trouble said. “After Admiral Crossenshield heard about how you cracked into the Peterwald net, not once but for several planets, he kind of got obsessive about our own planetary net. Surprise of surprises, old Al Longknife was interested in it as well. Even had a security package ready to sell. It kind of makes me wonder if Al had something to do with the Peterwald problem.”
“Or knows the folks who are running the new emperor around in circles,” Penny observed before Kris could.
Then again, Kris was rather busy kissing Jack and only half paying attention to the conversation.
Which meant she was only half paying attention to Jack’s kiss.
Problem was, she strongly suspected Jack’s focus was split, too.
Drat!
“So we got an entire new security system. Every computer had to be recertified. Every one of them, even a kid’s first computer. You can imagine how that went down. Oh, and just for fun, some machines’ certifications evaporated overnight, for quite a few nights. There were threats to take the whole thing down, but things are getting better, and people are grumbling less.”