Agent Foile sat back in his chair. Now his hands grasped its upholstered arms. He seemed to think long and hard. No doubt, if Father had called on him, he was a good and faithful servant of the people of Wardhaven. Did he really want to be initiated into all the twists and turns of the inner circles of those he served?
He took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Can what you tell me be any worse than what I’m imagining?”
“Very likely,” Jack cut in from his place on the couch. “It’s dangerous to get too close to one of these damn Longknifes.”
Kris sighed. Jack had a life before he got too close to her. What had she given him in return?
The agent did not flinch. Not even a little bit. “I suspect I have been too close to you Longknifes ever since your father summoned me to his office. Enough beating around this bush. Would you please answer my question?”
Kris could only shake her head and give the man a gentle smile. “Unfortunately, I am not all that sure what the answer is to your question. I assume you know that I seem to have started a war with some hostile aliens on the other side of the galaxy.”
“It was in the all the news,” Foile said in a matter-of-fact voice that made Kris smile. “My Agent Chu, a fan of yours, made sure I saw the worst of it,” he said, sounding like a father who had been dragged off to a rock concert. “Then, suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.”
“Yes,” Kris said, trying not to sound as forlorn as she felt by someone else drawing that conclusion. “There seem to be major differences in high places just how to respond to the hot potato I dropped in their laps. My great-grandfather Ray, King Raymond I to you, appears to be trying to raise a Navy without raising taxes.”
“How’s that working for him?” Foile asked.
Kris knew that the question was a throw away. She smiled and answered, “Not so good. Quite a bit of resistance all around. But it’s his son, my grandfather Al’s reaction, that is causing me trouble.”
There, she’d let the cat out of the bag.
The agent canted his head. “What is his reaction?” came at Kris evenly. The pounce might be soft and quiet, but the force of it was overwhelming.
Kris only reflected for a second before laying all her cards face up on the table. “Nothing, officially, but there’s chatter, not a lot of it, but it seems that Grampa Al wants to take a different tact from his father. Being the hard-headed business man that he is, it appears he wants to get the aliens talking to him, to establish trade. Whereas the excitable and shoot’em up types like Ray and me only get them shooting first and neither asking nor answering questions.”
The agent took her words in without reaction. He seemed to mull them over for a moment. When he spoke, it was a question.
“What do you think your grandfather Al will try to do?”
Kris took a deep breath. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She took another breath, let it out slowly and crept up on her worse nightmare.
“How about sending out a trading fleet loaded with all the goodies that we make?”
Foile pursed his lips in thought, then leaned forward, slipping to the edge of his seat, “And if these bad actors capture the fleet?”
Kris scowled and prepared herself to dive deeper into that nightmare.
Jack got there first. “They get all the computers and navigational material to take them right back to us.” he said. Then he rose from the couch to started pacing out his nervous energy.
Kris envied him his active release, but stayed in her chair, hands now folded tightly in her lap.
“A lot of good people died under my command,” she said. “Every ship that was hit dropped its reactor containment and blew themselves to atoms so that the aliens could get no navigational data from them. It looks like Grampa Al will give it to them on a silver platter.”
Now the agent nodded. He seemed to smile into himself. “This was what you wanted to question him about?” he said as if he had finally solved the perfect crime.
“Yes.” Kris said, giving the word all the finality it could carry.
“And rather than talk to you, or tell you some lie, he ran away.”
“Yes,” Kris said, then added with her own raised eyebrow. “Interesting reaction.”
“Very interesting,” the agent agreed. He seemed to realize he was on the edge of his seat. He forced himself to settle back, but if he was trying to relax, it didn’t look like he succeeded.
“You see why I was willing to risk everything to get a few words in,” Kris said.
“I do,” the agent said, “and may I say that I’m glad that I didn’t keep you from getting as far as you got.” He chuckled. “I don’t often fail. I’m glad I picked this time to have one of my rare breaches.”
Kris shrugged and waved limply at the quarters that were her prison. “I did fail. Now all I can hope for is to get my day in court and present my case to the public at large. Clearly, I will not be talking about vague rumors and innuendoes for which I can produce no basis in fact.”
The agent nodded vaguely, apparently lost in thought. When he spoke, it was with a smile. “On the other hand, it is frequently my job to produce just the sort of facts you lack.”
“Be careful,” Kris said. She said that a lot. It usually didn’t do much good.
Jack ceased his pacing. “While her Grampa Al might not be willing to use violence against Kris here, his subordinates, or their helpers, have been known to get very enthusiastic in their effort to get into his good graces. Remember ‘will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ The same could be said of a princess or a cop.”
The agent nodded at the warning, but his smile grew wider. “Minor minions are wont to go off half-cocked. However, they are often the ones that crack under pressure and give us our first handle on a rope that leads up the chain of evidence.”
The agent paused. Kris could almost see him organizing his thoughts, his plans. They cascading out behind his eyes.
“I think I know a couple of trees to shake,” he finally said. “This could be very challenging. Challenging and fun.”
“You have a weird sense of fun, then,” Jack said.
You’re one to talk, said the look Kris shot at him.
So sue me, he silently shot right back.
The agent stood purposely, then paused, “One word, Princess. If memory serves, Musashi still has capital punishment.”
Kris nodded. “Your memory is correct. Nelly advised me of it before we landed on the Mutsu, but thank you for the thought.”
Kris paused, trying to figure out if there was anything she could do to help this man, this bloodhound who was willing to take on an impossible search for her.
“If I may add, if you insist on taking on this quest for a damsel . . . and all humanity . . . in distress, you might want to talk with my brother Honovi. He’s a member of parliament and not as blind to some things as my father. You might also want to talk to my Grampa Trouble.”
The agent laughed. It was something that started deep in his belly and rose to light up his face. “If you mean General Tordon, I talked with him. He was a most reticent witness.”
Kris joined in with a chuckle of her own. “He’ll loosen up when you get to know him. Tell him I sent you and that I dropped the Grampa Al monkey on your back.”
“Thank you,” the agent said, then hastened to correct any misperception. “Not for the Grampa Al monkey, but for the secret handshake for General Trouble.”
“Just remember,” Kris said, shaking her head in warning. “He’s trouble for everyone, even me. Oh, another thing. I left my luggage in the Downside elevator station. Is there any chance you could send it on to the Mutsu?”